A day without kids

It’s a dreary day. I wrap my scarf around my neck before we head out the door. We drop the kids at school and we have the rest of the day to ourselves.

This is our first day back into our regular routine after the kids’ two week Spring break. They went to school on Tuesday, then had their regular Wednesday off where it rained all day and only I left the house to go for a run and a stop at the market to buy fresh tomatoes to go with a beautiful blob of burrata we were having for dinner.

Today is Thursday and we have until 4:30 to do whatever we want without kids. We have our usual grocery run to complete so we have the food we need for dinner and the next day’s baguette for breakfast. Otherwise, the day is wide open.

We head to a Vel’in station to take out bikes to get to Decathlon. The fifteen minute ride takes us down a new path and into some neighbourhoods we haven’t seen before.

Decathlon has all its camping gear set up at the front of the store and it has me excited for summer adventures and also missing our usual trips to Waskesiu at home. We look at kids’ shoes because our daughter needs a new pair and I grab some fuel for the marathon that is only a few days away.

We then walk to Le Channel scène nationale de Calais, a former abattoir turned into an artist space. There’s a fabulous bookstore, coffee shop and restaurant, theatre, and artist co-working space.

We sip deux cafe as we watch locals arrive to have lunch with small glasses of red wine.

We walk back to the center of town to stop at some shops along the way but our timing is off. Everything is closed between 12 and 2 pm so the owners and staff can enjoy lunch.

We continue on towards Hotel De Ville and I admire the flowers.

We decide to grab our own lunch at Le Friterie.

We each get a heaping pile of fries and I decide to get maroille cheese sauce on the side. This is a very strong cheese from northern France that’s fun to try, but I don’t think I actually like it.

We walk to the area with shops so we can pop into a boutique bike store before heading back to where we live so we can grab the kids after school. My scarf smells off. I notice I spilled some maroille cheese on a few of the tassels.

The sun finally comes out. I remove my scarf. Next time I’ll skip the cheese.